Monday, May 28, 2012

Taking A Break!

Yes, it's true. Sad, I know.

I had something planned for June, but "The Writer's Voice" got pretty insanely intense and the summer is just really busy for everyone. Therefore, I am taking a much needed break.

I will have a few posts coming during the break, including some awesome interviews, but I don't plan to host any contests until September-ish.

But this is good!

When we all get back, our heart rates will hopefully be back to normal and there will be shiny new work to play with from being able to focus all summer. Right? You ARE gonna focus, aren't you? :)

Yes!!!

And don't forget about all the other awesomeness that will be going on, like other contests and WRITEONCON!!!!!

So work hard and play hard this summer and be ready to go next fall!!!

See you then!!

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The Writer's Voice Twitter Pitch Party Rules (#WVTP)


The Writer's Voice Twitter Pitch Party Rules
Thursday, May 24th 12pm EDT-6pm EDT
(Twitter hashtag: #WVTP)



 Here's the rules...

Pitch your finished manuscript on the hashtag. You may pitch any time you see an agent online - just don't go crazy and pitch more than once during an agent visit. We will monitor the hashtag and gently inform you if you're being obnoxious. Make sure your pitch includes the hashtag #WVTP. The agents will be hopping in and out of the feed during the party hours. They'll tweet their requests for the manuscripts that pique their interests. Simple. Right? Not if more than one make a request on the same pitch, it isn't. 

Keeping in the spirit of The Writer's Voice, if two or more request the same pitch, you must choose one of them and announce it in the feed. (They promised not to hold any rejections against you.) 

If you get a request...

After you get a request, you must email us at thewritersvoicecontest@gmail.com, tell us which agent requested, we'll verify the request, and send you the agent's/agents' submission guidelines. 
  
So get your Twitter pitches ready, and make sure to include the hashtag. 

And follow the agents on Twitter...




 Vickie Motter 

Literary Agent with Andrea Hurst Lit www.andreahurst.com. Agent slash book blogger. Compulsive reader of Adult ParaRom&UF and YA. Terrified of robots.




John M. Cusick 

Author of the young adult novel GIRL PARTS. Literary agent with Scott Treimel NY. Managing fiction editor at Armchair/Shotgun. Mostly harmless.



Natalie M. Lakosil 

Literary Agent at the Bradford Literary Agency, making my way through adventures in agent land.



Pam van Hylckama

Associate Agent at Larsen-Pomada Literary. Queen of Slush, mother, dog owner, wife of a Dutchman. http://bookalicious.org · http://bookalicio.us 



  Hannah Bowman

Literary agent at Liza Dawson Associates. Cornell alumna. Reader. Writer. Organist. http://hannahbowman.tumblr.com

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

"The Writer's Voice" results!!!



This has been quite the contest!!! I can barely believe it's all over. But the good news is that we had some great results!

Here are those on TeamCupidsLC that received requests!

#1 BEHIND THE SCENES - Andrea Somberg, Louise Fury
#2 DAZE AND KNIGHTS - Taylor Martindale, Louise Fury
#3 FROSTY - Andrea Somberg
#5 ONE - Tricia Lawrence
#6 BUT NOT FOR ME - Lauren MacLeod, Andrea Somberg, Susan Hawk, Taylor Martindale, Roseanne Wells, Kevan Lyon, Louise Fury
#8 BURNOUT - Louise Fury
#9 MONSTROUS - Andrea Somberg, Taylor Martindale, Louise Fury
#11 PHOBIC - Tricia Lawrence, Susan Hawk, Taylor Martindale, Louise Fury

Awesome! (And we even had a bit of behind the scenes interest. Shh!)

And everyone on my team was sooooo great, I have NO DOUBT they will have great success through their querying!

Now a huge thanks to everyone who participated! We love you writers!!!! Keep up the great work!

Another giant thanks to the agents that participated! We love you guys too and hope you have much success in your reading!

And last but certainly not least, I want to give my awesomest thanks to the other coaches! It's been quite a ride, but you ladies were simply amazing to work with!

THANK YOU!!!!!




Thursday, May 17, 2012

The Writer’s Voice Contest Entries!

The Writer’s Voice Contest is a multi-blog, multi-agent contest hosted by Cupid of Cupid’s Literary Connection, Brenda Drake of Brenda Drake Writes, Krista Van Dolzer of Mother. Write. (Repeat.) and Mónica B.W. of Love YA.

We’ve based the contest on NBC’s singing reality show "The Voice". So the four of us selected projects for our teams based on their queries and first pages, and later, we coached these talented writers as they polished their entries.

And TODAY we have posted our team’s entries on our four blogs!

Eight AMAZING agents are going to read the queries and first pages and then, on May 21st, they are going to vote for their favorites. Each vote will count as a partial or full request depending on how many votes the entry receives. If an entry receives 1 or 2 votes, those votes will count as partial requests. If an entry receives 3 or more votes, those votes will count as full requests.

The fantabulous agents are:


BUT that’s not all!

After the agents vote, the amazing Tara Dairman, author of THE DELICIOUS DOUBLE LIFE OF GLADYS GATSBY (coming from Penguin/Putnam in 2014), will comment on all the entries and give her awesome feedback.

To read all the entries, please follow the links below:

Click here to read Krista Van Dolzer’s team entries!
Click here to read Brenda Drake’s team entries!
Click here to read Cupid LC’s team entries!
Click here to read Mónica B.W.’s team entries!

About commenting on the entries:

Cheerleaders are allowed. But only until Sunday! We want to leave the comment section free for the agents to vote on Monday.
And we will only accept, well, cheerleading. No criticisms before the agents vote. And please don’t leave messages to the agents, either. As in, “Trust me, you want this one!” (Though we know how tempting that sounds! =D)

Happy reading!

<3 

The Coaches


(Just wanted to give a shout out to my team and a THANK YOU for your hard work!!!! You guys are awesome and I know good things are coming your way. And GOOD LUCK to everyone in the contest! - Cupid)

Team CupidsLC #11 - PHOBIC

Title: PHOBIC
Genre: YA Horror
Word Count: 70,000

Query:

Fifteen-year-old Piper Crenshaw knows her house is strange. It’s never needed repairs since it was built in the 1800’s, and the lights flicker in response to things she says. As if that's not creepy enough, it’s also the place where her mother committed murder.

To prove she’s not afraid of where she lives, Piper opens a forbidden door, which hides a staircase that leads to the ceiling. That’s when the flashbacks of the original residents from 1875 start, including a love affair between two young servants. Each vision pulls Piper deeper into not only their story, but also her house. Piper confides in her best friend, Todd, whom she's gradually falling for, but even he doesn't believe her. At least, not until her house gets axed during a prank, and the act injures Piper instead, cutting a gash the size of Texas into her stomach.

Piper realizes her house isn’t haunted—it’s alive. To sever her link to it, she must unravel the clues in the flashbacks and uncover the truth about her mother’s crime, before she becomes part of her house for good. 

First 250:

When I was six years old I found the man my mother murdered stuffed under a trap door in our kitchen. The smell gave him away.

Police swarmed the house, which—uncharacteristically—made no creaking groans of protest at having that many outsiders in it. It was almost like the house knew Mom’s secret and wanted her to get caught.

The roof above me rasps now, like it’s being racked by a fleeting storm, but I grip the clarinet in my hands and glance at the stationary leaves and blue sky outside. Another moaning rasp resounds, nearly overriding the chime from the vintage clock with its swinging pendulum. That chime tells me I have thirty minutes before school starts. Time to get going. Except no matter how creeped out I am in my house, school is the last place I want to be.

Holding my clarinet so I don’t bend its silver keys, I separate the wooden pieces, place them in the case, and snap the clasps shut. Silence clouds my parents’ room in place of the sultry tones I’d been pushing out minutes before, and I stiffen, more aware of the walls around me. They’re like people I have to make my way through, a pulsing crowd of wood that inverts depending on my movements, tilting and nosing in. When I stop to notice them, they look away; motionless, as if they didn’t know I was there. Just walls, I tell myself, feeling a presence on my back like my every move is being calculated. 

Team CupidsLC #10 - HERE COMES THE SUN


Title: HERE COMES THE SUN
Genre: YA Contemporary
Word Count: 66,000

Query:

Being seventeen is entirely too complicated. School sucks. Parents suck. Enemies suck even worse.

Love sucks.

But it also means that you can sign up for a once in a lifetime senior class trip to England during spring break, happily leaving behind your single mother who still dabs at your dirty cheek with a spit covered thumb. Unfortunately, in Natalie Webber's case, she brings everything else that sucks along with her.

Natalie has one main plan for England, aside from win the heart of the queen so that she can marry Prince Harry - make life suck less. And by that, she wants to co-exist with the very group of girls that christened her with her god awful nickname of Tooty Fruity during Sophomore year. She's done being that girl that walks with her head down to avoid stares and conversations. She wants a new start. She wants to get out and explore, maybe overdraw on her bank card for a few articles of clothing from Harrods so that she doesn't look so much like a tourist. She wants to throw away her shy act and for once just open up to the world.

What Natalie doesn't expect is to meet Brant, a Beatles fanatic who has far too much charm and even more demons in his own closet. But it's Brant who forces her to step out of the shadows of herself, and realize that as long as “you” don't suck, your life, your school, your friends, and yes, even a new love, could possibly be the greatest gifts of all.

First Page:

I should have known from the amount of Diet Coke I drank that my bladder would hold up the white flag of surrender as soon as I stepped on board the plane. And even though I'd look completely asinine to the other fifty or so kids jetting with me to England for our senior class trip, I'd happily relieve myself in exchange for their jeers. I can just imagine the whispers that would follow me down the aisle of shame. “Oh look, there goes Tooty Fruity. She has to pee already. Didn't she know about the bathrooms in the airport?” And I did. I used them. But my bladder is the size of a walnut, unable to bear the strain of sixty-four ounces of sweetened, zero calorie pop consumed in approximately fifteen minutes.

What was I thinking? Stupid, stupid Natalie.

So here I am, flying so damn high in the sky that Chicago looks like Lego City, crossing my legs so tight that they are literally tingling from the pressure. I stare obsessively at the giant red X above the bathroom door, willing it to turn green. Unfortunately, I lack any form of telepathic powers.

Fighting back my tears, I shoot my head into the aisle every three seconds to check on the status of the bathroom. I don't see my classmates. Don't notice if they're staring and leering or ignoring me as usual. I just see the small aisle connecting two bathrooms, and giant X's above them both.

Team CupidsLC #9 - MONSTROUS

Title: MONSTROUS
Genre: YA Fantasy
Word Count: 82,000

Query:

Most people remember their first crush, first kiss, and first day of
school. Kymera remembers none of that.

But she will never forget her first breath.

When Father recreates her from the parts of her broken body, the wings
of a raven, the tail of serpent, and a cat’s razor-sharp vision, he
gives her life without memories or pain.

But not without a mission.

Kymera knows who murdered her. A wizard in the city of Bryre who is
sacrificing the girls of the countryside one by one. He is monstrous
and now Father has created a monster to stop him.

Kymera sneaks into Bryre each night, rescuing the captive girls and
doing her best to avoid the city’s human inhabitants. Then one night
she meets Ren, the king’s page boy, and her resolve weakens. Her
nightly missions take on a dual purpose—save the other girls and steal
a few moments with the boy who has yet to see her without her cloak.

As she lingers each night, Kymera begins to overhear things: a snide
remark about Father, rumors of a hideous beast, and whisperings of a
black market dealing solely in live, human goods. Ever since that
first breath, she’s known exactly who she is, but now she’s forced to
ask who is the real monster here—the wizard, her father, or worse,
herself?

First Page:

DAY ONE

I will never forget my first breath. Gasping. Heaving. Delicious.

When I opened my eyes, the colors of the world swarmed me, filling up
all space with hues and objects for which I had no name.

Three seconds later, I passed out from sensory overload, or at least
that is what Father says. He fixed me up and when I woke the second
time, the world became a more comprehensible place. The object
hovering over me was a face, the circles within it were eyes, and the
warm, wet drips leaking from them were tears.

The crease across the bottom that widened under my gaze was a smile.

“You’re alive,” Father said.

Even now, hours later, he mutters it still.


DAY TWO

I lean back against the willow and hold out my arms, studying them
under the waning sunlight. The thin red lines marking the sections of
my body have faded to nearly nothing. All that remains are the many
shades of my flesh and the tiny metal bolts fastening tail to spine,
joint to wing, and neck to shoulder.

Father, his silver hair flapping in the summer breeze, lays out logs
and strange metal pipes in the field. They will be used for my
training. He has not told me what I am training for, only that he will
when I am ready. He waves when he notices me watching.

I am sure I will be ready soon. Father is astonished at my progress.
Yesterday, I mastered walking within one hour, running in two, and now
I can even jump to the lowest branch of the willow with ease.

Team CupidsLC #8 - BURNOUT

Title: BURNOUT
Genre: YA contemprary
Word Count: 55,000

Query:

Seventeen-year-old Callie White wants one thing above all else: to become a professional drag racer. And she’s well on her way to having it all until her best friend, Milo, goes and gets himself a girlfriend—a serious girlfriend—and puts Callie in a tailspin. As much as she loves Maxine, her ’68 Camaro, it can’t talk back. It’s not Milo.

When Milo blows off Callie one too many times, in steps Sloane, the ill-intentioned ex-best friend. Once upon a time, Milo, Callie and Sloane were a happy trio, but that was before Sloane traded in ribbons and dolls for Nitros and bad boys. Callie knows she shouldn't trust her, but then Sloane introduces her to the world of underground street racing. It’s fast. It’s deadly. It’s completely illegal. And it sucks Callie in faster than a 700 mph jet car.

Now that she’s had a taste of racing sans rules and regulations, it’s impossible for her to stop. Milo's the only one who can bring her back, but Sloane won’t give up the chance to ruin Callie’s perfect little world without a fight. She plays dirty and even Milo isn't off limits. In the end, someone’s going to crash and burn, and it’s up to Callie whether it will be herself or Milo, the boy she’s realized too late that she’s in love with.

First Page:

Sharpies do not taste good. My nose crinkles as the metallic tang of permanent ink stings the tip of my tongue. With the cap clenched between my teeth, I rip the marker from my mouth and plant my foot on top of the front tire of my jet black ’68 Camaro.

Scribbled all over my gray Converse shoes are numbers, ranging from 10.9 to 14.8. In red Sharpie ink, I scrawl 10.7, my fastest time yet, across the toe. That’s how many seconds it last took to race my Camaro, Maxine, down a quarter mile track.

Hello, Universe. Callie White here, future professional drag racer extraordinaire. 10.5 seconds is what I need. 10.5 is what I’ll get. Just try and stop me. I dare you.

A horn blares nearby, followed by the familiar chug of a motor. I’d know that sound anywhere. Milo’s powder blue classic Chevy truck slows to a stop at the edge of my drive.

One tanned arm hung out the window, he smiles, revealing a set of perfect teeth, and guns the engine. Showoff. Hair on the back of my neck rises in response to his silent challenge. In racing, words are pointless, only used for gloating. I let Maxine speak for me.

I cap the Sharpie, toss it in my backpack and slide into the bucket seat. The smooth vintage leather molds to my body like a favorite pair of worn-in jeans. A swift flick of the keys and Maxine roars to life.